


and you wanted an adventure

by and_hera



Category: Archive 81 (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Cooking, M/M, Sibling Love, does static man fuck?, hell yeah he does, of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:01:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24860485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/and_hera/pseuds/and_hera
Summary: Christine Anderson is related to Nicholas Waters only through their Father. Their Father, who was going to eat Nicholas’s heart, who wanted Christine’s blood when she turned eighteen, who was powerful enough to shape the world into what he wanted. Nicholas hates that he is the only link to Christine.or, Nicholas Waters learns to live without his sister.
Relationships: Christine Anderson & Nicholas Waters, Static Man/Nicholas Waters, The Clerk & Static Man & Nicholas Waters
Comments: 9
Kudos: 136





	and you wanted an adventure

**Author's Note:**

> can't believe this is only my first a81 fic wtf? anyway i love a funky gay sorcerer with his vassal made of static and teeth and the mean woman who bullies them relentlessly a normal amount. i also love the sorcerer and the drowned woman a totally normal amount.  
> title is from "straw house straw dog" by richard siken bc i'm gay and dramatic.  
> hope you enjoy! pls leave comments and you can talk to me on twitter @lcvelaces !!

Nicholas Waters has never been a musician. Never will be. His voice isn’t what you would call  _ nice _ , and he doesn’t particularly care to try.

He can carry a tune, though. He can hum a song. So, when he sits on the pretentious couch that was once his Father’s with his leg bouncing and hand scribbling notes into a notebook in awful handwriting, he hums.

It’s his father’s melody, because of  _ course  _ it is. Damn thing never leaves his head, it seems. 

“Seriously, dude,” Static Man calls from the kitchen, poking his head around the partial wall. “I am like seventy percent sure that if you don’t get over here, I am going to set the house on fire.”

Nicholas rolls his eyes. “I’m sure you can find a way to put it out.”

“I am  _ not _ sure. Man, what were you  _ thinking  _ trying to make me cook!”

“You don’t usually eat,” Nicholas says, “so I figured you should get back in the habit.”

“I have Popeyes!”

Nicholas looks up from his notebook. “Does that really count as food,” he says.

Static Man grins- or, doesn’t grin? “I think so.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“Oh, and everything depends on what  _ Nicholas  _ thinks! Guess we’ll just change the natural order of things to suit  _ Nicholas’s  _ wishes!”

Nicholas sighs. Stands up. Smiles with no shortage of sarcasm and doesn’t move to walk into the kitchen, yet. “What are you even trying to make?”

Static Man, of course, doesn’t really have a  _ body _ (it’s more like if a child colored in the shape of a man; he bleeds over the lines), but his whole being slumps. “Scrambled eggs.”

Nicholas stares at him for a second, deadpan. “Is that all you know how to make?”

“I was a college student when I became  _ this _ ,” Static Man protests, gesturing with not-hands to his entire self. “It’s not like students are known for their superb cooking skills.”

Nicholas grabs his cane and walks over, watching as Static Man tries to flip one of the probably burnt eggs and the spatula falls through the staticky mess of himself. He’s solid, mostly, but he shifts so much that where his not-fingers were a second ago might not be there now. The spatula hits the floor. Static Man bends to grab it. He goes to stand up again and hits his not-head on the counter. Nicholas claps.

“Shut up,” Static Man says.

Nicholas stands beside him, holds out his free hand for the spatula. “Let me,” he says. 

Static Man rolls his not-eyes and gives him the spatula.

Nicholas isn’t a cook by any means, but he knows how to make enough things to be fine on his own. His mother wasn’t always around, and his father was never around, so. He’s always been a self-sufficient person.

He flips an egg easily. “Just be present,” Nicholas says. “Don’t, well, glitch I guess is the best way to put it.”

Static Man shrugs. “I’m doing my best!” he says. “Here. Let me try again.”

Static Man takes the spatula. In a moment of weakness (or is it courage?), Nicholas puts his hand around Static Man’s and guides it. 

Touching Static Man is strange. It sort of feels like your hand is numb, but also like it’s on fire, and it’s weirdly pleasant, too. Nicholas is sure that if Static Man didn’t like him, it would  _ not  _ feel pleasant. Probably, it would burn.

Static Man flips an egg. Nicholas doesn’t let go of his hand, though, and Static Man doesn’t ask him to. It’s quiet, and his father’s tune is in his head again. He doesn’t hum.

When they’re done, Nicholas turns off the stove and leaves the pan in the sink. They sit on opposite ends of the table. “You know,” Static Man says, mouth full, “I think I kind of missed real food.”

Nicholas raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Like, not just Popeyes.”

“So, you accept that Popeyes isn’t real food.”

Static Man gives him a look. “Listen. I get it. Popeyes fucking sucks. But it’s like, you know how Monty Python is the shittiest movie ever made, and yet everyone likes it!”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that,” Nicholas says, “but I get your point, I suppose.”

“You haven’t seen Monty fucking Python?” Static Man says, and he laughs. “God, with your history loving ass? We’re watching it tonight.”

“I was actually hoping to start looking for a body ritual-”

“Nah man,” Static Man says, “I’ve been without a body for like, five years.”

“Eight,” Nicholas corrects.

“Whatever. It’s been a longass time. And I am willing to extend that an hour and a half to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail with you, Nicholas.”

“I’m… honored?”

“You should be.” Static Man stares at his empty plate. “God, that went fast.”

“You are an interdimensional being. I’m not sure three scrambled eggs will fill you.”

Static Man shrugs. “Yeah, makes sense. Nick,” he says, “what’s your favorite dessert?”

Nicholas doesn’t bother to correct his name. “Maybe apple pie? My mom would make really good ones when I was younger.”

Static Man groans. “No, not like, some home-made God-tier food. Like, what’s your go-to when you’re at a restaurant and they give you a dessert menu? Cake? Ice cream?”

“I… I don’t normally get dessert at restaurants.”

“God, you’re so fucking lame,” Static Man says, and Nicholas- well, it’s not like he can  _ disagree _ . 

“Well, Christine was always the cultured one of us,” Nicholas agrees. “She always got your references.”

Static Man pauses for a moment. He is nearly always shifting back and forth, fuzzing in and out of place. Nicholas is never sure if it’s because he is made of static or if he simply does not want to stand still. But he pauses. 

And then he goes back to moving. “You know,” he says, “I always think it’s funnier when someone doesn’t get your references. Especially when it’s something ridiculous.”

Nicholas blinks. “So… you  _ don’t  _ want me to watch the movie with you.”

Static Man laughs. “God, Nicholas,” he says, “I want to watch the movie with you. And I was going to sneak into a store as a small cloud of static and maybe a few teeth and like, ninja some ice cream for you if you wanted.”

“I was just making sure.”

“‘Course.” Static Man punches him in the arm, and there is the fuzzy feeling again. “So. Ice cream? Cake?”

“Ice cream?”

“If you say you like vanilla, I swear to God, man.”

“Well…”

“I hate it here. I  _ hate  _ it here.”

Nicholas laughs. “Okay. So you’re going to break the law, and then we’re going to pirate a movie.”

Static Man grins. “Hell yeah!”

“Hell yeah,” Nicholas says, unenthusiastically, and when Static Man laughs, his father’s tune is still playing in his ears.

•

There is something about losing your sister, getting her back, and losing her again in twenty minutes flat that changes you, Nicholas supposes.

Christine Anderson is related to Nicholas Waters only through their Father. Their Father, who was going to eat Nicholas’s heart, who wanted Christine’s blood when she turned eighteen (bold of him to assume she was still a virgin. God, he’s the worst), who was powerful enough to shape the world into what he wanted. Nicholas hates that he is the only link to Christine.

Chris. Not Christine. She always wanted to be called Chris. Nicholas spends half of his life telling people to call him Nicholas, to use his whole name, but she wanted the endearing nickname. 

Nicholas holds his last memory of her close to his heart, because he doesn’t know when he will see her again.

He is sitting on the floor of his Father’s study. He is holding a shattered bust that was once in the shape of his Father. His hands are shaking, but he can’t bring himself to look away. His hands are shaking, and he can’t look away from his Father’s face, neither the somewhat preserved obsidian likeness lying on the floor nor the bloodied, fleshy version right beside it.

And there is Christine, shocking white hair and no less than three earrings in each ear, and she steps between him and Father. She takes his shaking shoulders and wraps her arms around him and tells him it’s okay, and in that moment, he thinks she sounds awfully like his Mother. 

And they are whispering, because it feels wrong to talk like humans right now. How did you get back here, he says, or something like that, and she says that some British guy is in love with her, and he laughs, because what do you even say to that? Some guy she doesn’t remember is in love with her, and he saved them both, and Father is dead on the floor, and he is still shaking but he’s laughing now. They both are laughing.

Chris is laughing and she is beautiful, she is his sister and he loves her more than he thought he could love a person. He has never been good at loving people. He has always been just a little too jagged to fit.

Christine Anderson, though, she is a little jagged, too. He is crooked and she is curved.

However, she has never been one to stay and Nicholas has always hated her a little for that.

So, she goes. Chris goes to her British man and to her ship and her crew and her dream world and she wants an adventure. She wants to  _ belong _ , and Nicholas doesn’t think he can tell her that he’s only ever belonged with her.

Go, he says. Have an adventure.

He clings to her saying that she thinks she needs to go. She is built that way. She loves him. He remembers, remembers standing in Father’s study with the clock ticking and Dan peering at him with eyes that are just a little too curious for him to be comfortable. He remembers making Dan bargain for his life because, well, he likes having control over people. He likes power. Always has.

Now, Nicholas knocks on Mrs. Roland’s door. She calls him Oscar, and he asks how he can find Alice. She gives him hard candy, and he doesn’t want to take it but he does, and he thanks her. 

He keeps the stuff in a drawer in his Father’s study, the real one. He doesn’t go into that room in his house anymore, not without good reason. The obsidian bust has been removed- Nicholas didn’t do it, but it’s gone. He doesn’t mind. 

More than anything, he misses Christine. 

He hopes she’s happy.

•

Living in a house after the Blacktop is strange. It didn’t feel like they were in the place for long, but they were. It didn’t feel like they became normalized to sitting in a car all day, but they did. 

Well, at least, that’s how it is for Nicholas. He shouldn’t include Static Man, because things are always different for Static Man. And Morgan is another story entirely.

But now they’re back in his house, that was once his Father’s house, and it’s pretentious and old and rich and sometimes Nicholas does wish that he and Chris had demolished it. It’s convenient because all three of them live there and are fine, and Morgan is learning how to sleep again and Nicholas is avoiding his Father’s study and Static Man is wreaking havoc wherever he goes, but it will always feel like Nicholas is living in a place that shouldn’t be his.

“Nicholas,” Morgan says, and her voice is nicer when she is in the real (if that’s the right word) world. “I’m still learning, and this has never been my specialty.”

“But?” he prompts.

“But,” she says, “I think I might have found something. The ritual will need fixing and changing but I think I can do it.”

Nicholas hums. “Have you told Static Man?”

“No. Don’t want to get his hopes up if you don’t think you can get the ritual to-”

“I can,” Nicholas says without hesitation, because if it gets Static Man a real body, he can do it. “Don’t worry about that. As long as  _ you  _ can-”

“I can,” Morgan says without hesitation, because she’s talented and knows what she’s doing, even without an instruction pamphlet from whichever Moody’s Family Friendly fill-in-the-blank she was in at the time to help. “I really think we can do this. It will take time, but he’s been staticky for what, ten years?”

“Eight, actually,” Static Man says, popping into their conversation and slinging a not-arm around both Nicholas and Morgan’s shoulders. “Well, adding on however long we were in the Blacktop. Something like that!”

Nicholas closes his eyes, catches his breath, relaxes his arms. Static Man isn’t a threat. “Do you ever announce yourself?” he asks lightly, knowing the answer. 

“Nope!” Static Man says, popping the P. “I’m just fun that way!”

“Were you listening in the whole time?” Morgan asks, pushing him off of her.

He shrugs. “Pretty much. You guys have a new plan to get me a body? Epic! As long as I’m not in Nicholas’s half-brother’s body- like, not only was that thing  _ totally  _ fucked up, I would  _ not  _ want to be in the body of someone I’m into’s brother! Gross, you know.”

Morgan raises an eyebrow. Shoots a look at Nicholas, who is doing his damnedest to not visibly react and is probably failing. “I mean, that’s fair,” she says.

A beat.

“Nicholas. Were you paying attention? I said-”

“I heard you, Static Man,” Nicholas says, and he grins. “I can’t believe you just told me you liked me in front of poor Morgan.”

“You make it sound like we’re five, dude,” Static Man says, and he holds out a fist. “Morgan’s cool. Right?”

Morgan stares at his not-hand, looks up at his eager face, and slowly gives him a fistbump without changing the expression on his face. Static Man whoops. 

“Yeah, so I’m going to go while Nicholas unrepresses himself,” Morgan says flatly, and she gives Nicholas a double thumbs up that he does  _ not  _ appreciate. “Good luck, SM,” and she walks up the spiral staircase.

“SM?” Nicholas says after she’s gone. “That’s a new nickname.”

“Yeah, well, I like it. And she doesn’t do much with affection, so I figure this is as close as I’m gonna get, you know?”

“I do know,” Nicholas says. “But. You-”

Static Man doesn’t have eyes to roll but he rolls them nonetheless. “God, you’re so dramatic,” he says. “Yeah, I like you, and I’m pretty sure I was very fucking obvious about it. Nick, I basically begged you to do a whole ‘oh there’s only one bed Guess We Have To Share’ thing back at the car repair shop.”

“I thought you were just being a dick,” Nicholas says quietly, and Static Man just looks at him for a whole second. And then he kisses him, which is something very strange indeed, and the sort-of numb feeling static gives you is there, but Nicholas doesn’t mind it. Static Man is more solid than he would have imagined. Static Man is a good kisser. Everything is on fire.

“I forgot my- Jesus fucking Christ,” Morgan says, and Nicholas turns around and there she is, almost picking up her cheap flip phone that she bought at Walmart but instead looking tired of being alive. “I literally was gone for a minute. I thought, oh maybe it will be safe to walk back and grab my phone now, they’re going to talk about shit, but  _ nooo _ .” She grabs her phone and points it at Nicholas, who feels thoroughly chastised. “You two can never get mad at me if I bring anybody home.” She turns on her heel and leaves the room again.

“Well!” Static Man declares. “That happened!”

Nicholas laughs, because what the fuck! “From the look on her face, you’d think all the cosmic horrors she’s seen are nothing compared to us making out,” he says, and Static Man laughs with him.

Then Static Man kisses him again, and Nicholas kisses him back. He likes making new memories in this hellscape of a house.

•

Nicholas has never been good with growing things.

When he was younger, his Mother had a garden outside. He thought it was wonderful. He would go and look at the flowers and he would pick strawberries and eat them fresh, even though his Mother told him he should wash them off first. It was a beautiful garden, a beautiful place. He would always overwater the flowers, though, when Mother let him take his little watering can and feel important. He would accidentally step on the tomatoes.

When he was in the Blacktop, in the car repair shop, he avoided Morgan’s growing instrument. Static Man would fawn over it and try and name it (to Morgan’s annoyance), but Nicholas would leave it alone, because he felt as though he would kill it accidentally, ruin it and break it into pieces. It is what he does. He breaks things and sometimes he builds them back together but they’re never quite right. Look at his leg. Look at Christine.

The musical instrument grew and grew until it was a singing thing that fixed their car. Nicholas did not break it. They drove on.

In Nicholas’s dream, there is a growing thing. Her name is Christine.

In his dream, she is standing on a boat. Her still shock white hair is longer now, not quite to her shoulders but almost. She is in clothes Nicholas has never seen her wear, but they suit her. The sky is unbearably blue. The ship is wooden and beautiful and it creaks. She breathes in deep, takes in the air that is not Nicholas’s air, and she grows ten inches. 

In his dream, there is a handsome man beside Christine, and he grows with her. Soon they are both towering creatures, tall as the ship itself, and then she puts her mouth against his and they are both small and normal sized. Nicholas is glad that she found someone to make her human.

In his dream, the wind is whipping in her hair and she’s laughing, laughing, laughing, the way she laughed when she was holding him in the study that wasn’t actually a study, and she’s holding her man and then she’s holding Nicholas again. He presses his face into her shoulder. He feels her breathe in again, and she grows ten inches and she is too tall to press his face into her shoulder. 

In his dream, Christine says, “I think I belong here more than I ever did with you. We’re all giants here, Nicholas.”

In his dream, he is thrown overboard by the giant growing thing that used to be his sister and he cries out to her but she can’t hear him, she is looking with a golden telescope over the great expanse of water and she is singing. She’s singing their father’s melody, and her voice is beautiful. Nicholas misses her so much that he aches.

When he wakes, Nicholas tastes saltwater and feels Christine’s arms around his shoulders.

Nicholas is bad with growing things, but he thought he could be good with a growing person. He was wrong.

•

Static Man’s new body is a growing thing. Nicholas steers clear, only helping when Morgan really needs him to.

Building a body is no easy task. Nicholas doesn’t understand most of it. He probably could if he wanted to, but he doesn’t want to ruin Morgan’s work somehow and have to make Static Man start over. It has to do with souls and purification and beating hearts. 

The good part about this ritual is that Morgan has some influence over what the body will look like, so she shapes it as it grows according to Static Man’s many and varied requests. She complains, but she smiles and works on the body longer than she needs to, which means that she loves him. 

They’ve become a makeshift family, Nicholas and Morgan and Static Man. Sometimes, Nicholas hates it, because Christine isn’t there and now they have another smartass strong woman in her place. They aren’t the same people. Morgan isn’t Christine. But they fill the same roles, and Nicholas feels himself trusting Morgan more and more each day, and he’s afraid that one day Morgan will fill the shape in his chest that he purposefully leaves empty for Christine.

He isn’t good with people, but he was good with his sister. He doesn’t know if he has room for another.

Nicholas tries, though, and so far it seems to be okay.

Static Man- Static Man is something else entirely.

Waking up with a thing made of static covering half of your body and leaving you mostly numb is a very strange feeling, and it’s not like Nicholas can move lest he be cut open by a stray tooth, so mostly he just waits it out. He’s always been an early riser, and Static Man has  _ never  _ been an early riser, so now they’re meeting somewhere in between.

They make breakfasts that consist entirely of eggs and pancakes most mornings and though Morgan always says she’s sick of it and that they need to get cereal at the store or learn how to make other things, she joins them in the kitchen. Static Man is better at using a spatula. Nicholas doesn’t know if it’s because he’s just been practicing or if it’s because they’re growing more of the body, but he doesn’t glitch in and out as much anymore. 

One day, they’re in the living room that used to be full of too-fancy furniture and now is mostly empty sans a couch, a chair, and a fireplace, and Nicholas says, “How long do you think it will be?”

Static Man, who is upside-down on the armchair, says, “Dunno. Morgan says a few weeks at the least. Maybe more.”

“Everything always takes so long with her,” Nicholas jokes, and Static Man snickers. “Two weeks for the car, and it’s already been a month for the body…”

“Hey man,” Static Man says matter-of-factly, “I will wait as long as necessary to make sure I look fucking  _ stunning _ . I’m going to be so sexy-”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Nicholas says dryly.

“Don’t act like you won’t be all  _ oh Static Man, you look so dashing in your new human flesh _ as soon as the ritual ends.”

“I most certainly will  _ not _ .”

“You totally will.”

Nicholas sighs dramatically. “Morgan won’t let me look at the face when I help.”

Static Man grins. “Yeah, I told her not to. I want you to be like, blown away when I wake up in my body.” He hums. “‘My body’. I don’t think I’ve called it that before.”

“Well, it is yours,” Nicholas says carefully. “I don’t think anyone else will want it.”

“Personally, I think everyone will want to wear my skin. Morgan is doing great. I look phenomenal.” Static Man sighs. “But like… what if it doesn’t work again. You know?”

“It will.”

“But what if it  _ doesn’t _ .”

Nicholas tilts his head. “Then we’ll find another ritual, and that one will work. Or the next one. I said I would get you a body, Static Man. I don’t break promises.”

Static Man shrugs, which is quite a feat as he’s still sitting upside down. “Yeah, I know. You still do the fucking thing. The ‘if you don’t mind me asking’ thing. You don’t have to, you know. You won’t make me answer you by accident.”

Now Nicholas shrugs. “My Father turned the Blacktop into what it is without even meaning to. I don’t want to be like him.”

And he isn’t. Nicholas isn’t his Father, no matter how monstrous he has become or will become. Nicholas Waters is a sorcerer with teeth but he refuses to become his Father’s son.

“You’re not a dick, though,” Static Man says, and it’s quite an understatement as to what Michael Waters was, but Nicholas appreciates the sentiment. “You don’t have to say it.”

“Okay,” Nicholas says. “But I am going to get you a goddamn body, Arthur.”

“Static Man,” he corrects, and his teeth glint.

•

When Nicholas takes the hard candy out of his Father’s study, he knows he will not remember what happens while he is gone. He takes it anyway, telling Static Man that he’ll only be gone a second, and then he hits the floor.

When he wakes up, he’s in an endless expanse of sea. A ways away, there’s a ship, a beautiful wooden one that creaks. This isn’t a dream, and Christine doesn’t grow tall. He swims over and she throws him a rope.

When they hug, Nicholas weeps, and so does Christine.

“How long has it been?” she asks.

“It was two years between when you left and when we talked,” he says, “and it’s been ten months since I left the Blacktop.”

“Jesus,” she breathes. “It’s been two weeks since we talked. Are you okay? What’s going on with everyone? I assume you left that part of the City. The Blacktop?”

Nicholas nods. He looks around the deck, which is oddly empty. “Yeah, I’m okay. Morgan- we met her in the Blacktop, she came home with us- she’s building Static Man a body.”

“Shit!” she says, grinning. Her hair isn’t to her shoulders, yet. Still white. Nicholas wonders if the color will ever come back, and he doubts it. “I’m happy for him! You been having lots of Popeyes?”

“On occasion,” he says, “but we usually make food. I want him to be used to real food when he becomes human again, even if he doesn’t exactly taste shit while he’s staticky.”

“Are you just- always recording?”

“Yeah.” Nicholas smiles. “Also. We’re together, now.”

“No shit!”

“Yes shit.”

She hugs him again, and they’re both laughing and holding each other again, and she’s a growing thing but he hasn’t broken her. “I mean, he’s made of fucking static and teeth. How does that-”

“Don’t ask,” he says, and she makes a face at him. “Where is everyone?” Nicholas asks. “I know you have a crew.”

Christine blinks. “Oh. I didn’t know if- Lou took them all below deck to work. He didn’t want them all to disturb us.”

“Lou?” he asks.

“Lou,” she replies.

“Is he the British guy?”

“Yes.”

“Are you two…”

She gestures wildly. “Sort of? My memories are still coming back, so we’re taking it slow. Maybe one day… but I don’t know. I’ve always been better at friends.”

“Can I meet him? And the crew?” Nicholas asks, and it’s strange because he doesn’t have the power here. He is a sorcerer but in the City, that means less, and he’s on Lou’s boat. He isn’t here to take control. He’s here to meet his sister’s new family.

It probably shouldn’t hurt. Nicholas decides that he won’t let it, and if it does anyway, he’ll just ignore it and it will go away. Christine can have her own family. She chose to be here. She still loves him. It’s okay.

“If you want!” she says brightly, and she goes to a door and calls out for people.

The crew is an odd assortment of misfits. They are all nice, except for the teddy bear, who is belligerent at best but everyone teases him despite it. Lou is handsome and has a charming smile and broad shoulders, and Nicholas likes him. Christine smiles and laughs and she is so, so alive. 

Nicholas can’t remember if she was this alive when she was with him. It doesn’t matter.

That night, they are sitting on the highest part of the ship. Nicholas doesn’t know what it is called, but it’s a spot to gaze from with a telescope, and he feels like the stars are closer than they should be. Christine is quiet as she looks out at the water.

“I brought you something,” Nicholas says. He takes the phone out of his pocket. It should be waterlogged from his swim, but it isn’t. “This should let us call.”

Christine takes it from him like it’s something to be treasured. “And it will work?”

“I hope so. You’ll have to call me, though.”

“Why?”

“Because I won’t remember any of this.”

Christine goes quiet. “Oh,” she says softly, and they look out at the waves. The ocean wind blows through her hair, and she is a growing thing.

“Are you happy here?” Nicholas asks, and it’s a simple question, but Christine is quiet for a long time.

And finally, she says, “ _ yes _ ,” like it’s the only possible answer, like it’s a sigh and a relief.

He squeezes her hand. “I’m glad,” he says. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she says.

They are quiet, looking out at the ocean. It’s peaceful. Christine breathes in and out like she was made for this air and not Nicholas’s. 

•

When he wakes up, he’s on the floor of his Father’s study. A phone is missing from his pocket. He does not remember anything but he has a splinter in his thumb and rope burns on his palms.

A few days later, he will get a call.

•

The day Static Man gets his body, it’s raining. Raindrops hit the pavement and splatter and it’s hot rain, not cold rain, the type that makes you sweaty and soaked.

Nicholas thinks about how in fiction, rain signifies change.

Static Man- no, that’s not his name. Arthur walks out of the house and sits down on the front steps next to Nicholas. He is still shaky and sometimes, in a certain light, Nicholas sees an outline of static on him, but he is human. He has a body and he can’t kill people with his teeth anymore, or at least no more than any other person can.

“This is fucking weird,” Arthur says, and his voice is mostly the same. There’s no distortion or crackle, though. Just his voice. It’s lovely. Arthur sticks his hand out past the overhang, letting rain slide down his fingertips. “Everything is so- in focus.”

“Imagine if you got a body and realized that you needed glasses because your eyes weren’t 20-20,” Nicholas says, and Arthur laughs. He stares at his hands like he’s never seen them before. Nicholas takes one of them, and Arthur doesn’t break his smile.

“I  _ knew  _ you would  _ so _ be into human me,” Arthur says, and Nicholas flips him off. “Hey! I’m right!”

Nicholas looks at their hands, held together. “This is fucking weird,” he says, and Arthur nods solemnly in agreement.

The rain keeps falling, pattering against car hoods and singing as it slides off leaves. “Nicholas,” Arthur says, “what do we do now?”

“I don’t know,” Nicholas says. “I got you a body. That’s been my goal for the last what, three years?”

“Something like that.”

“And you have a body. You aren’t a sentient orb of static anymore.”

“I have to admit, I’ll miss eviscerating people.”

Nicholas raises an eyebrow.

“Okay, maybe not, then. Don’t think you’re in the place to judge, Mr. I Murdered My Dad With His Own Statue And I Bring It Up In Conversation A Normal Amount.”

“Listen. It intimidates people!”

“And being able to shred people into bone fragments intimated people too!” Arthur sighs dramatically, staring into the distance. “I took it for granted. I miss you, sweet sweet teeth.”

Nicholas bumps into his shoulder with his own. “Hey, now I guess you only have to use one toothbrush.”

Arthur grins. There’s a gap between his front two teeth. “Aw, hell yeah!” he says, and it’s so like him that Nicholas kisses him.

Kissing Arthur is entirely different than kissing Static Man and yet also the same. His mouth isn’t numb though, which is a plus.

They sit there for a long time, kissing and talking and looking at the rain. Arthur keeps looking at his body like he’s surprised to see it there, and he keeps touching his ears like he’s surprised to hear out of them.

Nicholas watches the rain fall.

“Well,” Nicholas says, “what are we going to do next?”

“Probably something stupid and unnecessarily complicated,” Arthur replies.

“Yeah, probably,” Nicholas agrees, and, well, it doesn’t seem like a horrible place to start.


End file.
